"Battle of the Five Armies" is This Year's Hobbit Movie

Fans of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies have been enjoying a trip back to Middle Earth through cinema for the past two years. Jackson's latest trilogy, based on Tolkien's novel The Hobbit, has dominated the box office during the last two Christmas movie seasons.

This year fans were expecting a grand finale with a third movie subtitled There and Back Again - a reference to the subtitle of the original novel. Now, though, expectations for the film have been shifted slightly by a significant name change.

Peter Jackson announced this week that the third movie in The Hobbit trilogy will be titled The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. Jackson stated that the change was made because There and Back Again was the title of the final movie when only two Hobbit movies were planned. With the inclusion of last year's The Desolation of Smaug, the third movie simply doesn't fit the original title anymore.

Jackson did state that There and Back Again might be used on a future The Hobbit trilogy box set release. The director is currently in the process of editing The Battle of the Five Armies as well as an extended cut of The Desolation of Smaug.

All of this was explained in detail by Jackson through a post on his Facebook page:

The Battle of the Five Armies is set to release in the U.S. on December 17, 2014, when fans can expect humans, goblins, wargs, elves, dwarves, eagles, and orcs to join in a climactic battle over the Lonely Mountain's riches. Though the titular battle encompasses only a small portion of the original novel, the movie will undoubtedly present the event with all the action-packed grandeur Jackson became known for through the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

In the meantime, fans can ease their wait with the many well-produced The Hobbit production videos released by Warner Bros.